Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Catholics breeding like rabbits

In his interview on the plane from the Philippines, Pope Francis had something to say about the size of Catholic families. Here's a bit from the interview (the whole thing can be read here) ...

Christoph Schmidt: [... snip ...] My question: you have talked about the many children in the Philippines, about your joy because there are so many children, but according to some polls the majority of Filipinos think that the huge growth of Filipino population is one of the most important reasons for the enormous poverty in the country. A Filipino woman gives birth to an average of three children in her life, and the Catholic position concerning contraception seem to be one of the few question on which a big number of people in the Philippines do not agree with the Church. What do you think about that?

Pope Francis: [... snip ...] the key word, to give you an answer, and the one the Church uses all the time, and I do too, is responsible parenthood. How do we do this? With dialogue. Each person with his pastor seeks how to do carry out a responsible parenthood. That example I mentioned shortly before about that woman who was expecting her eighth child and already had seven who were born with caesareans. That is a an irresponsibility That woman might say 'no, I trust in God.’ But, look, God gives you means to be responsible. Some think that -- excuse the language -- that in order to be good Catholics, we have to be like rabbits. No. Responsible parenthood. This is clear and that is why in the Church there are marriage groups, there are experts in this matter, there are pastors, one can search; and I know so many ways that are licit and that have helped this ...

The good news - the pope recognizes that having as many children as possible is not a reasonable or moral goal, especially given over-population, its carbon footprint, and climate change, not to mention poverty like that found in the Philippines.

The bad news - he doubled down on the contraception ban and instead implied that there were many other ways to limit pregnancies. One can only wonder what he meant by that .... NFP, non-procreative sex, abstinence? He fails to acknowledge that in many relationships women have little choice about if, when, and how they have sex. Of course, in most countries like the US, nearly all Catholic *do* use contraception, but in places like the Philippines, where the church still has a death grip on politics, contraception can be difficult to obtain..